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Warhammer: Age of Reckoning: The Empire

Mythic's Paul Barnett offers us an exclusive glimpse into the embattled world of the Empire.

It would be difficult to find someone who will speak on the topic of Warhammer with more impassioned fervor than Mythic's Paul Barnett. The man seems to channel the spirits of the orcs, dwarves, and Chaos Marauders that populate the brutal world that he's helping to bring to life. As such, we could not think of anyone better to talk with us about the latest in-game faction for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning that Mythic has decided to unveil: the Empire. As you'd expect from the Warhammer universe, this human nation, to paraphrase Mr. Barnett, is teetering on the edge of annihilation at the hands of a multitude of assailants, not the least of which is humanity's own tendency to take the violent measures necessary for survival to wild extremes.

(click to see the full-size illustrations)

The Empire is part of the Alliance of Order, which Emperor Karl Franz formed with the neighboring dwarves and high elves. To call this Alliance the "good guys" of WAR would be a bit of a stretch -- rather, consider them the less ostensibly monstrous of the two factions. Two of the Empire's classes have been revealed thus far: the maniacal Bright Wizards, and the stalwart, fanatical Warrior-Priests. Both fill the roles you would probably imagine them to for their factions, though in all honesty, such flaccid descriptions pale against the vivid pictures that Mr. Barnett paints. What follows are his descriptions of the more pertinent elements of the Empire faction, accompanied by exclusive illustrations being shown publicly for the first time. He's also asked that we dedicate this article to both his mother and father.

Barnett on Bright Wizards:

First thing you have to remember is that The Empire is full of extremes.They represent, on an intellectual basis, that humans are capable of almost anything. And then on a sort of philosophical basis, that when humans are allowed to do anything, they take it to extremes. Whereas your elves cast magic, and it's impressive, I can tell you, the humans can only cast particular types of magic, because they can't be trusted with everything. They're sort of like five-year olds. Bright Wizards are humans that have been trusted with fire magic, and typically like humans, they've taken it to extremes.

In the main city of Altdorf, there is the Bright College of Magic, this enormous school where all the Bright Wizards go and learn their magic. It's so incredibly dangerous because Bright Wizards are all about fire. In the city, the Bright Magic tower stands on its own, and everywhere around it has been burned to the ground! And that's cause it keeps exploding, cause they won't leave it alone! Bright Wizards are wizards that are into fire, and they go around blowing things up.

Some people said to me, "That's interesting. What sort of magic do they cast?" The answer is: fire magic! What sort of things do they do? They burn things! How much magic can they cast? A lot of it! Think of them as nuclear weapons. They're buckets of instant sunshine. A Bright Wizard is all about taking the strands of magic, and using them in such a way that the magic doesn't make them explode, it makes their enemies explode. Throwing fireballs, lighting strikes, burning everything that -- it's napalm. Napalm, bombs, explosion, fire, flame throwers, matches, they smoke heavily, probably chew tobacco, all their hair is always singed, all their clothing looks like it's probably been on fire, they carry matches everywhere, tinderboxes, they like gasoline, they drink whiskey, they always got pipes stuck in their gobs. They're basically pyromaniacs.

That's what Bright Wizards are all about. They don't do a lot of buffing. They do a lot of burning.